Tax season is approaching quickly, and over the next couple of months, individuals and businesses across the country will be filing their tax paperwork with the IRS. Unfortunately, this also means it’s prime season for anyone looking to steal personal information or swindle people out of their tax refunds.

Tax scams for the purposes of identity theft have been common for decades, but as technology evolves, so do the scams. Taxpayers – and the IRS itself – lose millions of dollars every year to these schemes, so it’s important to understand what’s out there.

The holiday season is behind us and gift return season is ramping up. You may have already been concerned about identity theft while doing your holiday shopping, but you might want to hold onto that caution if you’re returning unwanted gifts.

Return fraud is a huge issue in retail, and in an effort to protect themselves, stores will often request a driver’s license or government ID for returns without a receipt. This becomes even more common after the holidays, when customers are likely to say they don’t have a receipt for a gift they received.

The information you post on these accounts can reveal a lot about you. When you add in public records like addresses, phone numbers, birth and marriage certificates, driving violations, and court cases, anyone who searches your name online will find a fairly comprehensive overview of you.

People run online searches on others all the time, and it’s important to occasionally search yourself, both on Google and a more thorough search tool like BeenVerified, so you know what they’re finding. You don’t want an embarrassing or questionable old post to come back and haunt you.

Identity theft is a big problem in the United States. Cyber criminals have been hacking into big data banks to pilfer personal information, including financial data, for many years. Recently, data analyzed by WalletHub was used to determine where identity theft occurs most often, and how much money has been lost to these cyber thieves.

In the past 13 years, there have been nearly 9,400 data breaches, which means more than 1 billion accounts have been compromised. That means there’s a good chance that your information could be floating around the dark web, where personal data is bought and sold.

Identity theft is a common concern for many Americans, and unfortunately, there’s good reason for that. There are numerous factors that impact your risk, from where you live to your credit score.

Despite the frequency of identity theft among adults, children might actually be at an even greater risk. The unsettling part? You’ll probably have no idea it’s happening to your child.

Criminals target minors for similar reasons they target deceased individuals: it is less likely that someone is checking their credit report. They then use their personal information, typically for non-financial purposes, like applying for apartment rentals or getting medical treatment.

As the holiday season approaches this year, you might be feeling a bit wary of using your credit or debit card at certain retailers who have had data breaches in the past. You’re not alone. In fact, the majority of Americans (75 percent) say they are at least somewhat, if not very, concerned about the potential of a similar occurrence.  

The main reason to be concerned about a data breach of your financial information is the threat of identity theft. If a hacker manages to break into a database with customer information, there’s a chance yours could be stolen and sold on the dark web.